Scheduled Programming

Our second week in japan has been filled with offers and opportunities to. . . see the Japanese countryside, interact with the local people, eat at a variety of local restaurants, and experiance Japanese culture on a very personal level . . . in the future.

It has been a week filled with paper work and information gathering, but no actual trips. Orientations and information sessions, and schedules oh my . The future is looking pretty awesome, though I worry a little bit that it may be starting to fill up already. I'll give a brief table of contents for things to come: done in no particular order.

Shinibari Elementary School- Next week Jessi and I will be going through AIU's Community Outreach Program to visit an elementary school, where we will share our culture and our language with the small children. We've been told that for many children this will be the first time they've seen a foreigner face-to-face, and that it will be an important experiance for them. No pressure. I told COS (the community outreach services deptartment) that I could juggle, so they have asked me to perform for the little kids. I'm looking forward to it.

AIU Festival- A festival that the school is associated with that is put on in some sort of conjuction with the people of Akita. I'm not sure how it works, but it means booths serving food and people putting on performances. I don't think that I will try and start a booth of my own, but I will definately help out. I may put on a juggling act there too, but I havn't decided. It's in early october, I hope it doesn't conflict with other stuff.

Yotosuke Trip- Hosted by a club here at AIU, the goal is to corresspond with a Japanese conversation friend at the city of Yotosuke and have conversations with them so that you can improve your japanese and they can improve their english. We've filled out applications, but wont here back for a while.

The Archives Trip- For Introduction to Japanese Society Ashmore sensei takes sections of the class and brings them to a cultural artifact archive department in a very small city nearby. The goal is to see them, and then learn how to appropriately clean and catalogue them. Ashmore says that it's free labor for a noble cause in a small poor village. We we're supposed to go yesterday, but the bus broke down and we couldn't get there. So instead Ashmore has offered a trip in early October to. . .

Oga- Oga is an amazingly natural pennisala north of Akita. It has several museums, an aquarium, and an unobstructed view of the ocean. There is also a restaurant where they catch a bucket full of seafood for you in the morning and cook it for you for about 10 dollars US. My roommate has already been, and has been bugging me to go all week. He and his friends from Germany have international driver's licenses, and were able to rent a car somehow.

Hoppo Cho- This is another thing put on by the COS department. For several weekends over the semester kids in the program go to a variety of schools to be used as an example in english classes. The program has limited seats, and sadly I got in, but Jessi did not. She has urged me to go on anyway, and I will do my best to document the trip. Each visit is actually a paying gig, and by the end of the semmester I should have about $90 dollars extra in my pocket. I will use a chunk of it to buy Jessi something shiny and awesome.

Daisen- A program identical to Hoppo Cho, but in a diffent City, this one doesn't start until deeper in October, but they have three times the number of seats available. That way Jessi will get to have the same experiance. I don't know if it pays, but there are a variety of opportunities here at AIU to help the community and the community is more than happy to give a little bit back for those services.


Overall it's looking like both Jessi and I will get a lot of chances to experiance Japan beyond the touristy sections of the city, and certainly get off campus a lot. I will keep you all updated as soon as some of this stuff starts actually happening.

-Mack